Within dental reconstruction alone, more than 7 million implants are inserted annually, most with good results although more than 3.5% fail, causing pain and discomfort for the patients. Moreover, a majority of the patients experience a prolonged healing period, up to nine months from the insertion of the implant to the crown itself is cemented and the process is complete. During the healing period, the patients experience inferior chewing, dysfunction of the jaw and compromised aesthetics, often with visible lacks and/or obvious temporary solutions.
Titanium is a commonly used implant material in dental and orthopaedic fields due to its inherent biocompatibility originating from, e.g. a high corrosion resistance. In order to obtain mechanically improved Ti implants, alloying elements are typically added. For practical biomedical applications, the alloy TiAl6V4 is the material of choice due to ease of processing. However, one drawback of introducing TiAl6V4 into a biological environment is the potential release of aluminium and vanadium, which are liable to cause harm to human bone tissue, thus degrading the bone integration of the implant.
A way to prevent harmful substances from leaching into biological tissue is by coating the implant alloy with a barrier layer consisting of e.g. pure titanium.
However, the presence of a barrier layer increases the complexity of the implant as well as the cost and time involved in the implant production.
Hence, an improved coating for body implant, such as dental or bone implants, would be advantageous, and in particular a more efficient and/or reliable coating for body implant would be even more advantageous.